(Hint: They're going North.)
As well, we know the cheap food bubble will burst and the days when the average Canadian can spend 10% of disposable income on food will be gone.
According to the Feb. 14 issue of The London Free Press, a senior market analyst predicts that “food prices will likely increase 5% to 10% over the next year or so.”
There are several factors affecting rising grocery prices, but so far no one has suggested that long distance training will help ease the pain.
I do so now.
For many years I trained my body to cover approximately 1,000 miles over 6-month periods (including dozens of hill workouts for strength, speed workouts for faster times, 20 - 25 mile long runs to increase stamina) in order to prepare for one shot at a 26.2 mile race on a specific date, e.g., The Forest City Marathon right here in London, Ontario.
Increased strength, speed and stamina helped me prepare for the next marathon (and other distances, e.g., 10 km., 21.1 km., 30 km. races), and the one after that, and the one after that, etc., for 10 years.
I learned over the course of my racing decade that long distance training principles (e.g., “a marathon starts with one step”) can be applied to other matters.
For example, the effort made to put a little bit of savings away each week produced something substantial at the end of one year, more at the end of two, and so on.
The pain associated with putting aside a little bit of savings might hurt at first, but then the pocketbook and mind and heart gets used to it, and the items that were reduced (e.g., restaurant meals, movies) to provide the savings are forgotten.
Related to our rising food bills: I bet there are 40 - 50 food items in homes across Canada and the US that most people can quite easily do without. (Rising body weights suggest I might be onto something!)
Turning back the tide of rising prices will be impossible, I’m afraid. It will be easier to trim the fat on grocery lists and in kitchen pantries.
I suggest we get into the long-term habit of cutting one non-essential food item off our grocery list every two or four weeks and choose to eat more fruit or vegetables in its place.
Twinkies out. Locally grown carrots in.
Potato chips out. Apples in.
Soda pop out. Diluted fresh juice in.
I recall the first time I tried to eat my homemade oatmeal without two spoonfuls of brown sugar. Yuck. It was as appetizing as a hill workout on Gibbons Hills during the early stages of marathon training. My body just wasn’t used to it.
However, after a few weeks, I stopped missing the sugar and was enjoying the taste of the mixture of oats, Red River cereal and bran, sweetened with a few diced cranberries, currants and raisins.
I don’t drink pop anymore. It’s far too sweet. I drink cooled juice from the pot after steaming vegetables. Or I drink diluted apple juice, or grape juice. Or water. Good old tap water. (And you know I drink the occasional beer. Yummy. And too much tea and coffee by some standards).
["One cold Guinness please. I can have two? Make it two!": GH 2004, London]
[Special note: It has been said that if you want to see what you're going to look like in 20 years, look at a photo of yourself crossing the finish line of a marathon. The photo above shows how I'll look at age 74. I'll be ordering Guinness! Good one! Sorry, I digress.]
Our bodies have been bombarded with too much sugar and high-fructose corn syrup and salt for years. It’s hard to buy breads or bagels anymore that don’t have 3 - 6 sugars listed under ‘main ingredients.’ Even salt and bottled lemon juice now contain sugar.
As grocery prices rise by 5 - 10%, I am confident that many Canadians will be able to make substantial savings by trimming nonsense foods from the weekly grocery list and train the body to accept the less exciting (aka sugary, fatty, salty) taste of real and healthier food.
Sure, some people will have to learn to cook, but isn’t that what TV is for? (The mindset of the long distance runner will help along the way).
It’s not like we didn’t know this was coming.
More to follow. (You knew that too!)
***
Please click here to read “It’s not like we don’t know PT 2”.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment